The Science of Dreaming

Dreaming is one of the weirdest things we do & in this SciShow infusion Hank talks about how science is helping us understand why we dream, what our brains are up to when they’re doing it, and why dreaming may be critically important to the function of our waking brain. He also touches on the fascinating subject of lucid dreaming. Try to stay awake!

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ReferencesDreams help us solve puzzles (http://www.saramednick.com/htmls/pdfs/Cai_PNAS_2009.pdf) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14737168?dopt=Abstract)

Lucid Dreaming
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-to-control-dreams
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=inception-is-a-clunker-but-lucid-dr-2010-08-02

General:
http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2006/12/the_neuroscience_of_dreaming.php
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/335866/title/First_brain_image_of_a_dream_created
http://www.saramednick.com/htmls/pdfs/Cai_PNAS_2009.pdf
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-science-behind-dreaming
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/stickgold-dreams.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14737168?dopt=Abstract
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v10/n1/abs/nn1825.html

IMAGES:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sigmund_Freud_LIFE.jpg [PUBLIC DOMAIN]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Die_Traumdeutung.jpg [public domain]
http://patientinfo.nimh.nih.gov/CC/Nimages/EEG3Large.jpg [public domain]